CHAPTER XXVIII.
katharine crowned. — henry and his queen make a progress through a great part of his dominions. — arrival of the disastrous news of his brother's death (the duke of clarence). — henry meets his parliament. — hastens to the seat of war. — birth of his son, henry of windsor. — joins his queen at bois de vincennes. — their magnificent reception at paris. — henry hastens in person to succour the duke of burgundy. — is seized by a fatal malady. — returns to vincennes. — his last hour. — his death.
1421-1422.
Henry, now in the enjoyment of peace in England, Ireland, and France, (except only so far as the Dauphin was yet unsubdued,) in the enjoyment, too, of a union with the most beautiful Princess of the age, seems to have reached the highest pinnacle of his ambition and his hopes. The Queen was crowned with great solemnity and magnificence in Westminster Abbey,[213] on the third Sunday in Lent. (23rd February 1421.)
After Henry had gratified his royal consort by proving to her how deep and lively an interest the people of England took in her welfare and happiness, he retired with her for a time to Windsor. A combination, however, of various motives, induced him to propose to her to join him in the execution of a design on which he seems to have been bent, and to accompany him[214] in a progress through the kingdom. He was most anxious to ascertain by personal inspection the state and condition of his subjects in various parts of the realm; more especially with the view of satisfying himself that justice was impartially administered, crimes repressed, and innocence protected. He felt also naturally a desire to present his loyal subjects to his Queen, of whom we have many proofs that he was in no ordinary degree proud; and, at the same time, to add to her gratification by visiting in her society those places with which he had early associations of pleasure, or which it would be most interesting to a foreigner to see. He was also influenced, perhaps, in some measure by a desire of visiting, in a sort of pilgrimage, the shrine of the patron saint of his family, John of Bridlington; and that of John of Beverley, the saint to whose merits the hierarchy, as we have seen, so presumptuously ascribed the turn of the battle on the day of Agincourt.
With these motives,[215] combined, it may be, with others, Henry lost no time in carrying his intention into effect. He seems to have always acted under a practical sense of the maxim, never to put off till to-morrow what is to be done, and what may be done, to-day. Without waiting for the summer, or a more advanced stage of the spring,—and, had he delayed for longer days and more genial weather, the journey would never have been taken,—we conclude that, about the beginning of the second week in March, the King and Queen, attended by a large retinue of friends and nobles, began their journey northward.[216] The first place in which we are sure they rested is Coventry, which they reached probably about the 8th of March, and where they were certainly on the 15th of that month, the eve of Palm Sunday. Henry had a house at Coventry, in right of the duchy of Cornwall, called Cheylesmoor; and probably they took up their abode in that mansion during their stay at Coventry. The greater part of the time spent in Warwickshire was perhaps passed in the castle of Kenilworth, a favourite residence of his grandfather, John of Gaunt, who made very great additions to the mansion, always afterwards called the Lancaster Buildings. Henry himself, too, had been much employed in improving this place, and surrounding it with pleasure-grounds and arbours,[217] instead of the thorns and brakes which had formerly been seen there. Just seven years before this visit with his Queen, he had drained and planted the rough land near the castle; and the local historians tells us the spot was called "The Plesance in the Marsh."
From Kenilworth the royal party went (probably about the 20th of March) to their house at Leicester, where they kept the festival of Easter.[218] Easter Sunday fell that year on the 23rd of March. Could Henry have known of the sad calamity which befel him that very Easter, his rejoicings would have been turned into mourning. It was at that very time that the disastrous conflict took place, in which the English were routed, and the Duke of Clarence, whom Henry had left his representative on the Continent, was slain. Where the King was when the melancholy tidings reached him, and which induced him to cut short his progress, does not appear. We know that the joyful news of Agincourt reached London on the fourth morning after the battle; and probably the sad report of his brother's death, and of the discomfiture of his troops, was posted on to Henry whilst he was at York. Towards this, his northern capital, we conclude that he proceeded from Leicester, about the last day of March. The inhabitants of York had made most costly preparations for the reception of their royal visitors; and on their arrival they welcomed their conquering sovereign, and the partner of his joys and cares, with every demonstration of loyalty and devotedness. The most princely presents were offered to Henry in the most dutiful and cordial spirit of loving and admiring subjects. How many days they remained together amidst the festivities and rejoicings of the province of York, is not recorded; perhaps the limit to this festival was the hour when the gloom which spread over the kingdom on the death of Clarence reached the royal party. It is not improbable that the news of his loss gave a turn to Henry's mind, and induced him with sentiments of piety and mourning to leave the splendour of his court for a while, and, laying aside the feelings of the triumphant monarch, to give himself up to exercises of devotion, and to a preparation for the same awful change which had so unexpectedly stopped the career of his younger brother. Leaving his Queen among his friends and faithful lieges of York, he proceeded on a kind of pilgrimage to Bridlington, Beverley, and Lincoln;[219] but in what order he visited those places it does not appear. He was at York on the 4th of April, and again on the 18th; whilst it is equally certain that on the 15th he was at Lincoln. The author of the manuscript which tells us that his object in going to Lincoln was to be present at the installation of Richard Flemming, then lately elected Bishop, seems to be in error when he adds, that the King rejoined the Queen at Pontefract, and thence proceeded to Lincoln, and thence to London; unless, indeed, the King visited Lincoln once by himself, and once with Katharine; a supposition in the last degree improbable. He certainly returned to York after his sojourn at Lincoln on the 15th. It is very probable that, when he left York, he proceeded first to Bridlington, thence to Beverley, and so, crossing the Humber at Hull, reached Lincoln about the 13th of April, and, having passed two or three days there, returned to York on the 17th. The only other town mentioned by chroniclers is Pontefract. Documents may, perhaps, be hereafter discovered to account for him between the 18th of April, when he was certainly at York, and the 1st of May, when he had returned to Westminster. At present we are left to conjecture: but it cannot be thought improbable if we suppose that, from his castle of Pontefract, (where he would have seen the Duke of Orleans[220], then a prisoner there, whom he always treated with respect and kindness, and whom he indulged with as much relaxation of his confinement as was compatible with his safe custody,) he took the route for Chester, the place where he had formerly landed on his return from Trym Castle. Thence pointing out to his bride the country of Glyndowrdy, in which he passed his noviciate in arms; and the whole line of the Welsh borders, with which he had been long familiar, he would probably have passed on to Shrewsbury, where he might have taken Katharine to the spot in the battle-field on which Hotspur fell. From Shrewsbury, his line would be through Worcester, in which city he had often been stationed during the Welsh rebellion; and so onwards through Oxford, (a place he probably had visited on his journey northward, and where he would have been delighted to show Katharine the "narrow chamber" assigned to him when he studied there,) thus finishing his circuit where it began, at Windsor.
There are difficulties attending this supposition, to the existence of which the Author is fully alive; but in the whole affair there is only a choice of difficulties. He is aware that the journey from York through Chester and Shrewsbury to Windsor would have required the royal party to travel for fourteen days at the rate of twenty miles on the average each day consecutively. But, on the other hand, without such a supposition, the old chroniclers[221] must be altogether laid aside, (though there is no other evidence to make their statement improbable,) when they assure us that Henry took Katharine to visit his principality, as well as the distant parts of his kingdom.[222] It must, moreover, be borne in mind that although he might have felt a reluctance (notwithstanding the melancholy event which hastened his return to the capital) to break off his intended progress without visiting at least the borders of Wales, yet he was pressed for time, and would therefore not willingly lose a day on the road. Be this as it may, we are assured[223] that, wherever he went, his ears were in all places open to the complaints of the injured and oppressed; he redressed their wrongs, punished the perverters of public trusts, reformed many abuses in the local governments, and established such ordinances as should secure for the future the impartial administration of justice to high and low alike.
If, as we are led to believe, Henry returned by the way of Chester, his ardent imagination and pious turn of thought would have reverted with mingled feelings of wonder and gratitude to his journey along the same road two-and-twenty years before; when, returning from his own captivity in Ireland, he accompanied the captive Richard towards his metropolis, to resign his throne there, and soon afterwards to lay down his life. To Henry, indeed, mementos presented themselves on every side of the frailty of all sublunary possessions, the precarious tenure by which king or peasant alike holds any earthly thing; whilst he was himself destined, in the revolution of the next year, to become in his own person a marked example of the same uncertainty. His spirit might seem to address us from the grave, in the words of a reflecting man.[224] "A day, an hour, a moment is sufficient for the overthrow of dominions which are thought to be grounded on foundations of adamant."
Where Henry was when the unexpected news arrested his progress is not known. The certainty is, that whilst he was anxiously engaged in reforming abuses, and preparing good laws at home; after he had also just concluded a peace with Genoa, and, by generously releasing the King of Scotland, had bound him by the strongest ties of gratitude and affection; his exertions were suddenly arrested by the sad news of the defeat of his forces at Baugy in Anjou, and the death, in battle, of his brother, the Duke of Clarence.[225] These tidings caused him to shorten his progress, and to return to his capital, where he arrived at furthest on the 1st of May.
The Bishop of Durham, Chancellor of England, was charged to open the Parliament, which met on the second of that month, Henry himself being present, in the Painted Chamber. The Chancellor's address, though in many points strange, and well-nigh ridiculous, is too interesting to be passed by unnoticed. He began by uttering eulogies on the King, specifying, among other topics of praise, this merit in particular,—that, whilst God had granted him victories and conquests as the fruits of his labour, he never assumed the least merit to himself, but ascribed all the glory to God only, "following in a manner the example of the very valiant Emperor Julius Cæsar;" and also because as Job, when news was brought to him of the death of all his children as they were feasting in their eldest brother's house, praised God, saying, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, the will of the Lord be done; blessed be the name of the Lord!" so our sovereign Lord the King, when he first heard of the death of the noble prince, the Duke of Clarence, his own dear brother, and of the gallant knights and others slain with him, praised and blessed God for the visitation of that calamity, as he had before had cause to praise Him for all his prosperity. In declaring the cause of summoning this Parliament, he mentions the desire the King had of rectifying, according to right and justice, all abuses and wrongs which had prevailed through the realm since his last passage to foreign lands, especially to the injury of those who had been with him there; and also his wish that all the laws of the realm should be maintained and enforced, and that further provision should be made for the [226]better governance, and peace, and universal good of the realm. The Parliament, it is said, cheerfully voted him a fifteenth,[227] though many persons petitioned against further taxation, and gave utterance to sad complaints of their poverty. The Convocation also met on May 5th, and on the 12th; they voted him a tenth from the revenues of the clergy: and his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, advanced to him by way of loan twenty thousand pounds. The Parliament guaranteed payment of the loans to all who should advance money to the King for this expedition.
Henry, impatient to repair the dishonour of the defeat which his forces had sustained, and to reduce his foreign dominions to peace, issued his writ, on the 27th of May, to the sheriffs of the several counties to publish his proclamation that all persons should hasten with the utmost speed to join the King, and accompany him in his voyage. And now possessing under his command a larger force than he had ever yet raised; after procuring by subsidies and loans as large a sum as the power or inclination of his people supplied; having also appointed his brother, the Duke of Bedford, Regent; he left London (never to return to it alive), on the last day of May, or the 1st of June. From the 1st to the 10th of that month he seems to have passed his days alternately at Canterbury and Dover; though the cause of this delay does not appear to have been recorded. To whatever the postponement of his departure is attributable, though he left the metropolis not later than the 1st, he did not finally quit the English shores till the 10th of June. On the 12th he was at Rouen.[228]
The Dauphin himself with a large army was at this time besieging Chartres, and Henry having passed by Abbeville, Beauvais, Gisors, and Mante, marched himself with strong hand to raise that siege. On Henry's approach the Dauphin withdrew.
Some of these facts, with others, are contained in a letter which was forwarded from Henry to the mayor and citizens of London, (it is the last we shall have occasion to transcribe,) and which is chiefly remarkable for his language when speaking of the Dauphin. He will not acknowledge him to have any right to the title, and calls him a pretender. Another point of considerable interest is the unqualified manner in which he speaks of the cordial co-operation and sincere attachment of the young Duke of Burgundy.
BY THE KING.
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. And for as much as we be certain that ye will be joyful to hear good tiding of our estate and welfare, we signifie unto you that we be in good health and prosperity of our person; and so be our brother of Gloucester, and bel-uncle of Exeter, and all the remnant of lords and other persons of our host, blessed be our Lord, which grant you so for to be! Witting, moreover, that in our coming by Picardy we had disposed us for to have tarried somewhat in the country, for to have set it, with God's help, in better governance; and, while we were busy to intend therto, come tidings unto us that he that clepeth him [calleth himself] Dauphin was coming down with a great puissance unto Chartres. Wherefore we drove us in all haste to Paris, as well for to set our father of France, as the said good town of Paris, in sure governance, and from thence unto this our town of Mante, at which place we arrived on Wednesday last, to the intent for to have given succours, with God's grace, unto the said town of Chartres; and hither come unto us our brother of Burgundy with a fair fellowship, for to have gone with us to the said succours; the which our brother of Burgundy we find right a trusty, loving, and faithful brother unto us in all things. But, in our coming from Paris unto this our town of Mante, we were certified upon the way, by certain letters that were sent unto us, that the said pretense Dauphin, for certain causes that moved him, hath raised the said siege, and is gone into the country of Touraine in great haste, as it is said. And we trust fully unto our Lord that, through his grace and mercy, all things here, that we shall have to do with, shall go well from henceforth, to his plesance and worship; who we beseech devoutly that it so may be, and to have you in his keeping!—Given under our signet, in our host, at our town of Mante, the 12th day of July."
Though the Dauphin avoided Henry altogether, he was forced to engage with the Duke of Burgundy's army, and he suffered a most decided defeat near Blanche Tache. Henry, meanwhile, was engaged in reducing Dreux and other towns, still garrisoned for the Dauphin.
The town of Meaux was so strong, and so well manned, that the siege of that one place occupied Henry from the 6th of October through the whole winter, and to the very end of the next April. During this protracted siege, in which the Earls of Dorset, and of Worcester, and Lord Clifford were killed, Henry sent ambassadors to the Emperor Sigismund for succours. He had the satisfaction, meanwhile, to hear that his Queen was delivered of a son, at Windsor, on St. Nicholas' day (December 6th). Whether the common report has any foundation in truth, cannot now be certainly known: his father, however, is said to have omened ill of the young prince when he heard of the place of his birth, and to have spoken thus to Lord Fitz-Hugh, his chamberlain: "My lord, I Henry, born at Monmouth, shall small time reign and get much; and Henry, born at Windsor, shall long reign and lose all: but God's will be done!" Probably this was a prophecy forged after the event, and ascribed to Henry without any foundation in truth.
In the session of Parliament held December 1st, 1421, under the Duke of Bedford as Regent, one fifteenth was voted for prosecuting the war, with this condition appended, that the first half of it should be paid in the money then current. The gold coin had been much lessened in value by clipping and washing; consequently the Parliament, to relieve the people, ordained that the receivers of the tax should take all light pieces, not wanting in weight more than 12d. in the noble. The people, therefore, got rid of their gold as fast as they could, and hoarded up their silver.[229] The Convocation also, which met at York, September 22nd, granted a tenth.
After reducing many towns and castles, Henry proceeded to the Château Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, to meet his Queen,[230] who had landed at Harfleur, on the 21st of May, with a noble retinue, and under convoy of the Regent himself. Henry and Katharine entered Paris together, where they were magnificently received; the same painful contrast still being felt by Charles between his court and that of his heir-apparent. The young King had put the spirit of the Parisians to the test by a strong measure, in levying a most unpopular tax; but the discontent did not break out into any open tumult. Indeed (as the chroniclers record) their resentments were abated, or rather turned into affection, when they felt the kind influences of King Henry's just and moderate government, and observed his exact administration of justice in redressing wrongs, and punishing without partiality or favour the authors of them. By this just conduct he gained especially the love of the people, who regarded him as their father and protector.
The Dauphin in the mean time was anxiously bent on recovering a crown from which the victories of Henry, and the displeasure of the King his father, had excluded him. His army was comparatively small, and he therefore, whilst Henry was with an army in the neighbourhood, avoided a battle, keeping always two days' march distant from him. Finding, however, that Henry was now, at length, far away, he laid siege to Cone, a town on the Loire, the garrison of which agreed to surrender on the 16th of August, if they were not by that time relieved by the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke not only sent into Flanders and Picardy to levy troops to raise this siege, but importuned Henry also to strengthen him with English soldiers and officers. The King's answer was that he would come himself at the head of his whole army to the Duke's relief. This was his resolution; but God decreed otherwise.
Very shortly after this resolution, Henry was seized by a disorder, on the exact nature of which historians are not agreed, which proved fatal to him. Yet, though much weakened, he resolved to join his army, which, at the first approach of his disorder, he had commanded the Duke of Bedford to lead on to raise the siege of Cone. With this intention he left the King[231] and Queen of France, and his own beloved Katharine, at Senlis, and proceeded to Melun. His complaint was then making rapid and deadly progress; and, after having been carried in a litter with the intention of passing through his troops, he was compelled to return to Vincennes.[232] The Duke of Bedford, who had raised the siege of Cone without striking a blow, hearing now of the state of danger in which his brother was, left the army, and, accompanied by a few friends, rode full speed towards the castle, where the King lay.
Henry, sensible that his end was fast approaching, desired the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Exeter, the Earl of Warwick, Sir Lewis Robessart, and some others, to stand round his bed; to whom we are told he spoke to this effect: "I am come," said he, "to the end of a life which, though short, has yet been glorious, and employed to advance the good and honour of my people. I confess it has been spent in war and blood; yet, since the only motive of that war was to vindicate my rights after I had ineffectually tried milder methods, the guilt of all the miseries it occasioned belongs not to me, but to my enemies. As death never appeared formidable to me in so many battles and sieges, so now, without horror, I regard it making its gradual approach. And since it is the will of my Creator now to put a period to my day, I cheerfully submit myself to his will." He then mentioned two circumstances which tended to make him anxious on leaving the world: the one, that the war was not brought to a close; the other, that his son was an infant. But he was comforted on both these points by the tried friendship and sound principles of the Duke of Bedford, his brother; to whom he gave in charge both his kingdom and his boy. He then desired the Earl of Warwick to undertake the office of preceptor and guide to the young prince in learning and in arms. Henry next left a charge for his brother Humfrey to be careful that no division of affection and interests should take place between them; he conjured them also not to quarrel with the Duke of Burgundy, and enjoined them not to release the Duke of Orleans, and some other prisoners, till his son was arrived at years of discretion.
This was a mournful hour for those noblemen and friends and relatives who surrounded his bed. At length, having given all necessary directions for the government of his kingdom and his family,[233] he fixed his thoughts wholly on another world. He urged the physicians to tell him the real state of his disease; but they evaded any direct answer. Very soon he required them to tell him how long, in all human probability, he had to live. After some consultation, one of them, speaking for the rest, knelt down and said, "Sir, think of your soul; for, without a miracle, in our judgment you cannot survive two hours." His confessor and other ministers of religion then surrounded his bed, and administered the parting rite of the Roman church, as it was at that time and is still practised. He next desired them to join in the seven penitential psalms; and when in the 51st psalm they read, "Build thou the walls of Jerusalem," caught by the words, Henry bade them stop awhile; and with a loud voice declared to them, on the faith of a dying person, that it verily had been his fixed purpose, after settling peace in France, to proceed against the infidels, and rescue Jerusalem from their tyranny, if it had pleased his Creator to lengthen out his days. He then requested them to proceed; and when they had finished their devotions, between two and three o'clock in the morning, he breathed his last.
Henry of Monmouth died 31st August 1422; and when he resigned his soul into the hands of his Redeemer, he seemed to fall asleep rather than to expire.[234]
Such a Christian end of his mortal existence is not surprising when we remember (a point on which his own chaplain will not suffer us to doubt,) that every day of his life he read and meditated upon the word of God, for the express purpose of learning how best to fear and serve him; a daily exercise (says the chaplain) from which, when he was engaged in it, no one even of his chief nobles and the great men of his state[235] could withdraw him.[236]
The bowels of Henry were buried in the monastery of St. Maur; and his body embalmed, being put into a leaden coffin, was drawn to St. Denis. Before and behind the corpse were two lamps burning; and two hundred and fifty torches gave light to the procession. The Abbot and Monks of St. Denis came out to meet it, and solemnly preceded it to their church, where they performed the office for the dead, the Archbishop of Paris singing the requiem. From St. Denis the procession advanced to Paris, where the body was deposited for a while in Notre Dame; and thence, with great and solemn pomp, it was carried to Rouen. The Queen, from whom the death of her husband had been before concealed, here met the Duke of Bedford; and made preparations for the conveyance of the body to England. In a bed, in the same carriage with the body, was laid the figure of the King, with a crown of gold on his head, a sceptre in his right hand, and a ball in his left. The covering of the bed was vermilion silk embroidered with gold, and over the chariot was a rich silk canopy. The chariot was drawn by six horses in rich harness. The first bore the arms of St. George, the second, the arms of Normandy; the third, those of King Arthur; the fourth, those of St. Edward; the fifth, the arms of France; the sixth, the arms of England and France. James, King of Scots, followed it as principal mourner. The banners of the saints were borne by four lords. The hatchments were carried by twelve captains; and around the carriage rode five hundred men-at-arms, all in black armour,—their horses barbed black, and their lances held with the points downwards. A great company clothed in white, and bearing lighted torches, "encompassed the hearse." Those of the King's household followed, and after them the royal family; the Queen, with a great retinue, followed at a league's distance. Whenever the corpse rested masses were sung from the first dawn of the morning till nine o'clock. The procession passed through Abbeville to Calais; and crossing to Dover, proceeded with the same solemnities towards London. When they approached the capital, they were met by fifteen bishops in their pontifical habits, and many abbots in their mitres and vestments, with a great company of priests and people. The princes of the royal family went mourning next to the hearse. The corpse was buried in Westminster Abbey, among its most valued treasures.
Among the public acts[237] of the realm his death is thus recorded:
"DEPARTED THIS LIFE, AT THE CASTLE OF BOIS DE VINCENNES, NEAR PARIS, ON THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST, IN THE YEAR 1422, AND THE TENTH OF HIS REIGN, THE MOST CHRISTIAN CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH, THE BRIGHT BEAM OF WISDOM, THE MIRROR OF JUSTICE, THE UNCONQUERED KING, THE FLOWER AND PRIDE OF ALL CHIVALRY—HENRY THE FIFTH, KING OF ENGLAND, HEIR AND REGENT OF FRANCE, AND LORD OF IRELAND."
Here we would have drawn the curtain round the bed of Henry of Monmouth; but truth and justice compel us to tarry somewhat longer in the chamber of death. The tongue and pen of calumny have not suffered the dying hero to pour out his soul with his last breath in prayer and pious ejaculations unmolested; and the accuser's name is too widely known, and has unhappily gained too much influence in the world, for his calumnies to be passed over as harmless. Henry, having "set his house in order," and being certified how short a time he had to live, declares, on the faith of a dying man, that he had been fully resolved (had the Almighty granted him length of days to put his resolve into effect) to proceed in person to the Holy Land, and rescue the city of God from the pollutions and abominations of the infidels. In recording this declaration of the expiring monarch, Hume adds a comment as full of bitter sarcasm as it is tinctured with his characteristic spirit of scepticism. "So ingenious are men in deceiving themselves, that Henry forgot in these moments all the blood spilt by his ambition, and received comfort from this late and feeble resolve; which, as the mode of those enterprises was now past, he certainly would never have carried into execution." Had Hume been as faithful and painstaking in the search of truth, as he was ready to adopt the account of any transaction which was nearest at hand, and unscrupulous in substituting his own hasty remarks in the place of well-weighed reflections on ascertained facts, he never would have suffered so ignorant and ill-founded a comment to disgrace his pages. Hume[238] charges Henry with having left the world, forgetful of the bloodguiltiness by which his soul was stained, and with a sentence of hypocrisy and falsehood on his lips. To the first charge,—that Henry, at the awful moment of his dissolution, deceived himself into a forgetfulness "of all the blood spilt by his ambition,"—needs only to be replied, that so far from his having forgotten the loss of human life attendant upon his wars, the very page on which the historian is so severely commenting, records that Henry spoke of that subject openly and unreservedly to those who stood around his bed, expressing his sure trust that the guilt of that blood did not stain his soul, who sought only his just inheritance; but rested on the heads of those who, by their obstinate perseverance in injustice, compelled him to appeal to the God of battle in vindication of his own rights.
Again, Henry declares, on the faith of a dying Christian Prince, that it had verily been his fixed resolution, as soon as his wars in France had been brought to a favourable issue, to proceed to the Holy Land. Hume says that this was a late and feeble resolve; and the ground on which he rests this charge of falsehood is, that the mode of those enterprises was then past. Hume ought to have known, as an ordinary historian, that the mode of those enterprises was not then past; and Hume might have known that Henry's was not a death-bed resolve, to which the expiring self-deceiver clung for comfort when the world was receding from his sight; but that in his health and strength, and in the mid-career of his victories, he had actually taken preliminary measures for facilitating the execution of that very design.
With regard to the first position asserted by Hume, that "the mode of these enterprises was gone by," the facts of history are so far from authorizing him to make such an assertion, that they combine to expose its rashness and unsoundness. When Henry succeeded to the throne, he found a large naval and military force actually prepared by his father for the proclaimed purpose of executing such an enterprise, the undertaking of which was only prevented by his death.[239] And even a century after, the mode of those enterprises had not yet passed; for Pope Leo X. successfully negociated a league between the chief powers of Christendom, engaging them to unite against the infidel dominion of the Turk. Not only were such crusades subjects of serious and practical consideration in Europe just before Henry's accession to the throne, and a full century after it, but, during the last years of Henry's life, most vigorous and persevering exertions were made by the Sovereign Pontiff to effect an immediate expedition of the confederated powers of Christendom to Palestine, with the avowed purpose of crushing the power of the infidels. The histories of those times bear varied evidence to the same points: we must here, however, confine our attention to some facts more immediately connected with the case before us. In the year 1420,[240] July 12, Pope Martin V, conceiving that Sigismund would very shortly bring the war which he was then waging against the Hussites in Bohemia to an end, in a bull dated Florence calls upon all Kings, Prelates, Lords, and people, adjuring them most solemnly, by the shedding of Christ's blood, to join Sigismund, and under his standard to invade the lands of the Turks, and to exterminate them. He urges the formation of one grand general army, and for all true men to take the cross; with his apostolic promise to all who should so assume the cross, and join the army in their own persons and at their own charges, and also to all who should take up arms with the bonâ fide intention of joining the army, should they die on their journey, a full remission of all sins of which they should have repented from the heart, and confessed with the mouth; and, "in the retribution of the just, we promise them (says the Pontiff) an increase of eternal salvation."[241]
In the following year the Pope wrote a most urgent letter to Sigismund, pressing upon him, before and above all things, the duty of extirpating the heresy in Bohemia; assuring him that, however brilliant might be his career in other respects, yet by no means could he so well secure the favour of God, renown among men, and the stability of his throne. The Pontiff, in the same year, wrote repeatedly to Henry, King of England, urging him to consent to terms of peace between his country and France. We should have been glad had we been able to contemplate the Pontiff of Rome, in the character of a Christian mediator, urging two contending nations to be reconciled, solely with the Christian desire of stopping the dominion of war and blood, reconciling those who were at variance, checking the violent passions of mankind, and restoring to Europe the blessing of peace. But his desire was to reconcile France and England, in order that the concentrated powers of the faithful in Europe might be turned against the heretics in the north; and, when they were exterminated, then that the same forces might proceed to crush the infidel, and rescue the lands of the faithful from his grasp. The ecclesiastical historian,[242] who records the letters of the Sovereign Pontiff, assures us that Henry, King of England, had been repeatedly admonished by "the vicar of Christ to make peace with the French, and to dedicate to Christ his skill in war against the Turks, those savage enemies of the Gospel; adding (what the facts of the case did not justify him in saying,) that, in the agonies of his last illness, Henry confessed that he was dreadfully tormented with remorse because he had not consecrated his martial powers by waging war against the Mahometans."[243] Surely this testimony is of itself sufficient to rescue Henry's memory from having vowed that he had resolved to do what he knew he never could have done. "The mode of those enterprises was" not "past."
But Hume would have it believed that this was a late and feeble resolve of Henry, formed on his death-bed, when he was acting the part of a self-deceiver, forgetful of the lamentable effects of his ambition, and seeking comfort from his self-deception in the last moments of his life. There is strong and clear evidence that he not only had contemplated such a measure, but had actually taken important preliminary steps to facilitate the execution of his design, whenever he might be happily released from his present engagements. "This vindicatory evidence" (to use the words of Mr. Granville Penn)[244] "of the veracity and sincerity of Henry, is a manuscript discovered at Lille, in Flanders, in the autumn of 1819, which proves to positive demonstration, that at the moment when Henry was suddenly arrested in his victorious progress by the hand of death, his mind was actually, though secretly, engaged in projecting an attack on the infidel power in Egypt and Syria, as soon as he should have pacified the internal agitations of France; and that a confidential military agent of high character and distinguished rank had been despatched by him to survey the maritime frontier of those two countries, and to procure, upon the spot, the information necessary towards embarking in so vast an enterprise.
"The manuscript is a small quarto in vellum, in old French, finely written in black character, and richly illuminated; consisting of fifty-four pages, and comprising a succinct military survey of the coasts and defences of Egypt and Syria, from Alexandria round to Gallipoli, made by the command of Henry within the three last years of his life, and completed and reported immediately after his unexpected death, by which death it was rendered unavailing. The confidential author of this survey was Gilbert de Lannoi, counsellor and chamberlain to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and that Duke's ambassador to Henry."
The same writer thus expresses himself in conclusion. "His declaration was not the prompting of a sickly conscience striving to procure delusive comfort from 'the late and feeble' resolves of a death-bed, as Hume unworthily asserts; it was the composed and deliberate communication of a dying captain and sovereign, disclosing to those around him, under a strong sentiment of devotion, a secret of that kingly office which he was then on the point of relinquishing for ever. To enter upon an appreciation of the moral value of the enterprise which Henry had then in prospect, would be as much out of place here, as it would be absurd to estimate it by the rule of the present age. In those ages, when all the higher orders of society were either clerical or martial, much real piety of sentiment must, in innumerable instances, have been compounded with the widely-extended romantic spirit which was ardent to hazard life on sacred ground of Judea, rather than to suffer the continuance of its profanation by the avowed enemy of the Christian name.
"The establishment of this point, certifying, as it does an interesting fact hitherto unknown, and effectually repelling and exposing an unjustifiable sarcasm directed against one of the most illustrious princes that have graced the English crown, may acquire in the history of truth the importance to which it might not be able to lay claim in the political history of a people."[245]
In dismissing the immediate subject of this inquiry, the Author of these Memoirs feels himself under the painful necessity of recording his deliberate judgment on the inaccuracies of that celebrated writer, whose reflections upon Henry's dying declaration have been animadverted upon here. Through the whole series of years to the events of which these Memoirs are chiefly limited, he has been able to find very few transactions in recording or commenting upon which Hume has not been guilty of error; whilst the mistakes into which he has fallen (some more, some less, gravely affecting the character of an historian,) are generally such as an examination of the best evidence, conducted with ordinary care, would have enabled him successfully to avoid. Hume, unfortunately, supplied himself without stint from the stream after it had mingled with many turbid and discolouring waters. To draw, in each case of doubt and difficulty, from the well-head of historical truth, would have exacted more time and labour than he was ready to bestow. Had he prescribed to himself a system of research the very opposite to that in which he unhappily indulged, instead of representing Henry of Monmouth to have left the world with the falsehood of a self-deceiver on his tongue, he would have been compelled to record him as a man of piety, mercy, and truth.